tranger was an unwieldy proposition to handle in conjunction with
the problem of the _Conomo_.

"Just understand that I don't give a hoot in a scuttlebutt if you do
turn me over to the police," pursued the man. "I'm going to be taken
care of. So will you! You'll be tied up! Courts like to have chief
witnesses attend strictly to the job."

The young man had only a sailor's vague knowledge of the procedure of
courts of law; but that knowledge and considerable hearsay had convinced
him that law was lagging, exacting, and overbearing.

All his time, his best efforts, his presence were needed in the gigantic
task he had undertaken at Razee. To allow himself to be mired in a law
scrape together with this person, even in criminal prosecution of the
man, surely meant delay, along with repeated interruption of his work,
if not its abandonment for a time.

"Where's your boss?" he demanded, stopping in front of the prisoner.

"Name, please?"

"Don't try to bluff me. Fogg, I mean!"

"You'll probably find Mr. Fogg at the Nicholas Hotel."

"I'm going to walk you up there. If you try to run away--"

"Run your Aunt Huldah! Piff, son! Now you're showing sense. Take me to
Mr. Fogg. You'll be shown a few things."

They had no difficulty in finding Mr. Fogg. He was in front of the fire
in the office of the Nicholas, toasting his back and warming his slowly
fanning palms, and talking to a group of men.

He affected non-recognition of Mayo when the young man asked, brusquely,
if he might see him in private.

"Certainly, sir. And your friend?"

"Yes."

The stranger, following up the stairs with Mayo, nudged his companion.

"He's a wonder! 'And your friend?'" he quoted with a chuckle. "No coarse
work about that!"

Mayo had firmly decided in his mind that his present business was the
only matter he would discuss with Fletcher Fogg. Even though the just
wrath of an innocent man, ruined and persecuted, prompted him to assail
this smug trickster with tongue, and even with fists, he bound himself
by mental promise to wait until he had proofs other than vague words and
his own convictions.

"And now--" invited Fogg, when he had closed the door of his room,
waiting tmtil his callers had entered.

"Yes, _now!_" blurted Captain Mayo. "Not _then_, Mr. Fogg! We'll have
that settled later, when I make you pay for what you did to me. This
man here, you know him, of course! He tried to dynamite the _Conomo_.
I caught him in the act. H